I must admit I love warships. They look pretty (according to some, battleships are sexier and prettier than beautiful young women!);
they sort of symbolise technological and industrial prowess of your nation,
especially when those warships are actually manned and operated.
Back in the 1990s, proliferation of nimble warships in
smaller nations was talked about. When, for example, Thailand became the first
Asian nation to possess an aircraft carrier after WW2, that came as a surprise.
But do we hear anything about a Thai naval task force, with a dozen fighter
airplane, dominating seas of Southeast Asia? China’s growing naval power is a
worry, especially when she acquired an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier. But it is
absolutely no threat to US naval forces at the moment; if anything, the
American navy is more worried about land-based anti-aircraft carrier missile
China is reputedly developing. So, if you possess a real, functioning navy,
that means you should be proud of your country!
But, recently, working on naval strategy in the Pacific, I
realised that one thing that has been totally ignored or at best
underappreciated is the Japanese merchant marine. Their sacrifice was immense.
While Japan’s armed forces got something like 20% of their personnel killed, the
Japanese merchant marine lost staggering 80%(ish). The Japanese were obsessed
with set-piece naval combat with big warships back then and so protection of
merchant ships and tankers in wartime was not even an issue. But the US navy
ruthlessly attacked these types of ships to strangulate Japan.
It is rather strange that, while it did occur to the
Japanese to target the weakest point of the US, i.e., the public that was
unwilling to fight a savage war across the Pacific unless the US mainland
itself was under threat (Japan’s suicide attacks were partly designed to
frighten the US public), it did not occur to them that the Americans would
surely do the same to Japan.
Japan’s weakest link is of course its geography. It is an
island nation that is not self-sufficient, especially when it comes to running
its wartime economy. It relied on imports for most materials, especially oil,
without which, no matter how good your fighter planes or battleships are, they
could be rendered useless.
(Source: US National Archives)
American submarines had a field day in 1944-45 (though they too
suffered higher percentage of casualties themselves than other branches of the
US navy), sinking Japanese ships in droves. Unlike German U-boats, they did not
encounter any serious resistance. The Japanese failed to come up with any
effective counter to submarine threats. By the end of the war, the Japanese
merchant marine was completely wiped out. Any surviving ships were blockaded in
ports.
And so sailors, who were forcibly conscripted by military,
paid the price of incompetence of Japanese high command. They were resentful
but powerless. As they see it, the ‘proper’ warriors were just sitting on their
asses, waiting for the so-called decisive moment, to win the war in a single
battle. That never came. The biggest battleship, the Yamato, was nicknamed the Yamato Hotel, partly because, as the flagship of the entire Japanese navy, it’s
got luxurious staterooms for admirals and other VIPs, but also during the war,
this monstrous ship was mostly just cowering in ports, entertaining admirals
and governors. Ostensibly she was waiting for the right moment to use its massive 18-inch guns, but, in the eyes of common sailors, that’s totally nuts.
In the meantime, transport ships were sent to reinforce the
front, only to be sunk by American air and sub forces. Many Japanese army
divisions were literally sunk even before they got to the front. Almost no
Allied soldiers suffered from such fate in the Pacific (though some Allied PoW
were lost while being transported in Japanese ships, sunk by US submarines).
Often they could not even hit back. Some ships were equipped with AA guns so
they might shoot down a few attack planes. But against subs, they were utterly
helpless, especially at night. They got escort ships, but only the most important
and largest convoys got destroyer escort. Most escort ships were inadequate and
small sloops and frigates, no better than coast guard patrol vessels. They had
to be extremely lucky to counterattack US subs to sink them.
The voices of these helpless sailors were never heard. They
often invoke the example of the British, who, in contrast to the Japanese,
recognised the importance of protection of merchant ships in the Atlantic and
went on to defeat the U-boats, in order to attack the then Japanese military leadership.
But, apart from a handful of books written by merchant seamen who served and
miraculously survived the war, not much is done to raise public awareness of
this sad history.
So, back to peaceful Yokosuka, the naval base shared by the
US and Japanese allies. It is full of warships, beautifully on display for the
benefit of tourists. I was one of the tourists! But I see no
memorial of war dead, let alone for those merchant seamen. It makes me wonder
why we cannot appreciate their services – after all, in peacetime too, without them,
our economy would ground to a halt. Security at sea is something we should be
more concerned with. If you look at history, fall of
empires often coincide with the demise of their sea commerce. That’s a lesson we
should not forget.
